Weekend Broadcast

Eternal Punishment

A Message by R.C. Sproul

Hell is an unpopular subject in today’s churches. The notion that God would punish anyone forever goes against our internal sense of what is right and fair. After all, what sin could anyone commit that would be worthy of an infinite penalty? In this lesson, Dr. Sproul explains the justice of God’s judgments.

Further StudyOn This Topic

article

What Are You Worried About?

article

The Disappearance of Hell

devotional

Eternal Punishment

What Are You Worried About?

R.C. Sproul Jr.

We are inveterate plea-bargainers. We are adept at the art of the deal. Romans 1 tells us that in our fallen condition, we all deny the God we know exists. We know we stand guilty before Him, but we suppress that truth in unrighteousness. But, we do not want to be utterly and completely selfish, absolutely unrestrained. So we submit to sundry creatures, gods of our own making. We are willing to have, for instance, "god-to-me" in our lives, if it will keep the living God at bay. We are willing to admit some level of guilt—"nobody's perfect"—in order to avoid entering into the fullness of our wretchedness. And we are willing to fear some minor inconveniences, if it will keep terror away.

When Jesus delivered His Sermon on the Mount, He treated His audience as though they were believers. He told those who had gathered that they were the light of the world and the salt that preserves the world. Unbelievers, however, do not go unaddressed. In calling on believers to set aside their petty fears and to embrace a single-minded passion for the kingdom of God, in chastening those assembled for worrying about what they will eat and what they will wear, He says, "For the Gentiles seek after all these things" (Matt. 6:32).

This worrying, too, is plea-bargaining. It is an attempt to squelch one dreadful fear by replacing it with a merely annoying fear. It is a great win to be able to sigh in relief after honestly assessing, "What's the worst that could happen?" If I don't have enough to eat, that could be bad, from a certain perspective. If I have nothing to wear, that too could be bad, from a certain perspective. Either of these deprivations could, at worst, lead to my death, through starvation or exposure. That, it seems in our day, is at the root of our fears. We live in a culture where death is looked upon as an option to be delayed. Exercise, diets, surgeries, cosmetics, and Photoshop are the tools of our trade by which we avert our eyes from the truth that we are dying.

We have not, however, reached the end of our bargaining. We prefer worrying about what we will eat or wear to worrying about dying. But we prefer to worry about dying rather than worry about hell. Dying, after all, happens only once, and then it is over. Hell, on the other hand, is forever. I would argue that far more terrifying than the pain of hell is its duration. A great deal of pain for even a relatively brief time is less than a pain that lasts forever. What unbelievers ought to be worrying about is not he who can kill the body, but He who can kill both body and soul (Matt. 10:28).

This, in turn, ought to tell us for what we should be most grateful. This great fear is no longer on the table for those who trust in the finished work of Christ alone. What are we doing spending our time worrying about the plea-bargained fears of the Gentiles when we are free of their ultimate fear? Why should we worry about what we will eat when we feast on the body and blood of our Lord? Why should we worry about what we will wear when we are clothed in His righteousness?

Hell should not, however, fall off our radar even though we need no longer fear it. First, we are called to constant thanks and gratitude that we will never experience hell. We are called to remember that on the cross Christ descended into hell for us, that He received the full wrath and fury of the Father due to us for our sins. But second, hell did not disappear. Why are we worrying about what we will eat or what we will wear while there are people out there who will end up in hell unless they repent, but are instead worrying only about what they will eat or what they will wear? It is bad enough that they who want to deny that hell exists worry about petty things. How much worse is it that we who affirm the reality of hell worry about petty things?

When we seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, we are not merely seeking to get in before the gates close. It is not merely our own entrance that we seek as we seek the kingdom. Rather, we are about the business of seeing the glory of the reign of Christ over all things made known all across the globe. Which means we seek the kingdom as we seek to be used of the King to bring in the elect from the four corners of the world. We seek the kingdom when we proclaim the good news to a lost and dying world. We seek the kingdom when the Spirit uses us to snatch brands not just from the fire, but from the fire that never dies.

We are none of us conscious enough of hell. Were we so, we would be marked by both gratitude and urgency, gratitude for our own rescue, urgently laboring for the rescue of others. Hell is real, and hell is forever.

The Disappearance of Hell

John MacArthur

According to recent polls, some 81 percent of adult Americans believe in heaven, and fully 80 percent expect to go there when they die. By comparison, about 61 percent believe in hell, but less than 1 percent think it's likely they will go there. In other words, a slight majority of Americans still believe hell exists, but genuine fear of hell is almost nonexistent.

Even the most conservative evangelicals don't seem to take hell very seriously anymore. For decades, many evangelicals have downplayed inconvenient biblical truths, neglecting any theme that seems to require somber reflection. Doctrines such as human depravity, divine wrath, the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and the reality of eternal judgment have disappeared from the evangelical message.

The trend has not escaped everyone's attention. Thirty years ago, for example, Martin Marty, religious historian, professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School, and critic of all things evangelical, delivered the Ingersoll Lecture on Immortality at Harvard Divinity School. The title of his message was "Hell Disappeared. No One Noticed." Marty's research had failed to turn up a single scholarly article dealing with the subject of hell in any significant theological journal over the previous century. Citing the dearth of attention being given to so large a topic, Marty suggested that if evangelicals really took seriously what Scripture says about eternal punishment, someone with a voice should notice.

Almost no one did. Eighteen years later, The Los Angeles Times featured a front-page article titled "Hold the Fire and Brimstone," pointing out that many style-conscious evangelical church leaders were purposely omitting the theme of divine retribution:

In churches across America, hell is being frozen out as clergy find themselves increasingly hesitant to sermonize on . . . a story line that no longer resonates with churchgoers. [According to] Harvey Cox Jr., an eminent author, religious historian and professor at the Harvard Divinity School, "You can go to a whole lot of churches week after week, and you'd be startled even to hear a mention of hell."

Hell's fall from fashion indicates how key portions of Christian theology have been influenced by a secular society that stresses individualism over authority and the human psyche over moral absolutes. The rise of psychology, the philosophy of existentialism, and the consumer culture have all dumped buckets of water on hell.

The article profiled an evangelical pastor who said he believes in hell, but (according to the Times) "you'd never know it listening to him preach. . . . He never mentions the topic; his flock shows little interest in it." Asked why the doctrine of hell has gone missing, this pastor replied, "It isn't sexy enough anymore."

The article also quoted a well-known seminary professor who more or less agreed. Hell, he said, is "just too negative. . . . Churches are under enormous pressure to be consumer-oriented. Churches today feel the need to be appealing rather than demanding."

The article closed with a quote from Martin Marty, almost two decades after his famous lecture on the subject. He agreed that market-driven concerns are the main reason hell is being expunged from the evangelical message:

Once pop evangelism went into market analysis, hell was just dropped. When churches go door to door and conduct a market analysis . . . they hear, "I want better parking spaces. I want guitars at services. I want to have my car greased while I'm in church."

Years of indifference finally paved the way for open hostility. In the first decade of the new millennium, certain prominent figures in the "emergent church" declared war on the biblical doctrine of hell. The groundswell seemed to crest a couple of years ago with the publication of Rob Bell's bestselling book Love Wins. Bell argued that it's absurd to think a loving God would ever damn anyone to eternal punishment. He portrayed God's love as a force that clashes with and ultimately eliminates the demands of justice. In the storyline Bell envisions, God requires no payment or punishment for sin. The divine response to evil is always remedial, never punitive. Furthermore, the wages of sin are mild, temporary, and reserved only for grossly malevolent villains—mass murderers, child rapists, tyrants who engineer genocide, and (one supposes) Christians who tell unbelievers they should fear God. When it's all over, everyone will be together in paradise.

In such a system, God's righteousness is compromised, repentance is optional, atonement is unnecessary, and the truth of God's Word is nullified. In other words, nothing of biblical Christianity is left. Once anyone sets out to tone down or tame the hard truths of Scripture, that's where the process inevitably leads.

Only a few leading voices in the evangelical movement have lobbied boldly for a more orthodox approach to the doctrine of hell. They seem to be outnumbered by those who think the disappearance of hell is a positive development.

Some have proposed alternative ways to speak of sin and judgment in gentler, toned-down, and more refined and socially acceptable terminology than Scripture uses. Sin is deemed wrong not because it is an offense against the righteousness of God, but because of the hurt it causes others. Hell is described not as a place of eternal punishment but simply as a realm apart from God. In the reimagined eschatology of stylish evangelicals, no one is ever "sent" to hell; sinners actually choose to spend eternity apart from God—and the "hell" they suffer is merely an abundance of what they loved and desired the most. Hell is necessary only because God is reluctant to overrule anyone's free will. Therefore, with a more or less benign acquiescence, He ultimately defers to the sinner's choice. God's righteous indignation has no meaningful place in such a scenario.

It is a serious mistake to imagine that we improve Scripture or enhance its effectiveness by blunting its sharp edges. Scripture is a sword, not a cotton swab, and it needs to be fully unsheathed before it can be put to its intended use. "The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart" (Heb. 4:12). The gospel is supposed to be an affront to fleshly pride, offensive to human sensibilities, foolishness in the eyes of worldly wisdom, and contrary to all carnal judgments.

No Christian teaching exemplifies those characteristics more powerfully than the doctrine of hell. It is an appalling truth. We rightly recoil at the thought of it. The doctrine of hell thus stands as a warning and a reminder of what a loathsome reality sin is. No reasonable or godly person delights in the reality of eternal damnation. God Himself says, "As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked" (Ezek. 33:11).

Yet the severity of God's wrath and the woes of hell are prominent in Scripture. The New Testament speaks more vividly and more frequently about hell than the Old Testament does. In fact, Jesus Himself had more to say about the subject than any other prophet or biblical writer. Far from smoothing over the difficulties that seem to embarrass so many evangelicals today, Jesus said:

Do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! (Luke 12:4–5)

If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire. (Matt. 18:8–9)

We do no one any favors by downplaying the truth of God's wrath or neglecting to mention the severity of His judgment. We certainly don't eliminate the threat of hell by refusing to speak or think of it. If we truly believe what the Bible teaches about the eternal fate of unbelievers, it is in no sense "loving" to remain silent and refuse to sound the appropriate alarm.

What, after all, is the good news we proclaim in the gospel? It is not an announcement that no one really needs to fear God or fret about the possibility of hell. As a matter of fact, there would be no glad tidings at all if God merely intended to capitulate to the stubborn will of man and forgo the demands of His perfect righteousness.

The good news is even better than most believers understand: God made a way for His righteousness and His love to be fully reconciled. In His incarnation, Christ fulfilled all righteousness (satisfying, not nullifying, the demands of His law). In His death on the cross, He paid the price of His people's sin in full (assuring the triumph of perfect justice). And in His resurrection from the dead, He put a powerful exclamation mark on His own perfect, finished work of atonement (thus sealing the promise of justification forever for those who trust Him as Lord and Savior).

That is the message we must declare to a worldly culture utterly lacking any real fear of God. We cannot do it faithfully or effectively if from the very outset we have omitted the harsh truth Scripture declares about "the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty" (Rev. 19:15).

Eternal Punishment

Acts 17:16–34 records one of several models for evangelism that we find in the New Testament. Paul appeals to the innate sense that all people have of God's requirements and existence, and then he gives a brief presentation of the gospel, including Christ's resurrection from the dead. Note how in verse 31, Paul refers to the day of judgment on which He "will judge the world in righteousness."

This thought strikes terror into the hearts of anyone who seriously considers his sin. The Judge who will administer judgment on that last day is perfect in His justice and righteousness, and if the judgment is according to His righteousness, there will be nothing arbitrary, unjust, or unfair about it. If we stand before Him on the basis of what we have done, we have no hope. Even if we have sinned only once in our lives, we have offended an infinitely holy God, and an offense of that magnitude demands an infinite retribution. Thus, in Scripture we have the doctrine of eternal conscious punishment—there is a hell into which all those who rest in their own works and not in Christ alone will be cast, and in that place they will feel God's wrath forever and ever (Rev. 20:10, 14–15).

In many ways, we all find hell a horrible thing to think about. We all know people who are very dear to us and who have given us no indication that they know Christ. Some of these people are alive, and some have already died. We find it difficult to believe that we will be eternally happy in heaven if we know that some of those whom we love are suffering in hell. But that is to look at things from a fallen human perspective. Even though we who know Christ have true affection for Him, our way of seeing the world is so tied to our earthly experience that we tend to think more about the well-being of our friends and family than the vindication of God's righteousness. But when we enjoy our final glorified state, we will be so enraptured by the beauty of our Creator and His majestic holiness that we will be able to rejoice in the fact that this holiness and justice are being revealed against the impenitent in hell, even the impenitent to whom we have been so attached. We will be able to evaluate reality apart from the influence of our fallen nature, and we will glory fully in what glorifies the Lord, including the manifestation of His holy justice (Rev. 14:7). The Light of the World will enable us to see sin for what it truly is, and so we will rejoice in its punishment.